VALLETTA - A handshake, €150,000 (S$220,000) in cash and a coded text: Maltese prosecutors on July 2 set out their case against a tycoon accused of ordering the murder of a prominent investigative journalist.

Yorgen Fenech is accused of masterminding the 2017 murder of Daphne Caruana Galizia in a case that shook the island nation and brought down a previous government.

After the defendant attempted to escape on his yacht in 2019 and many procedural delays, Fenech’s trial finally began on July 1.

He denies the charges.

According to the indictment, cited by the Times of Malta, the 44-year-old tasked an acquaintance with finding people capable of getting rid of the journalist and blogger, initially saying he feared she would publish revelations about his uncle.

This acquaintance contacted two brothers - Alfred and George Degiorgio - agreeing with them on a price of €150,000 which he says he was given by Fenech in cash in a brown envelope, according to an account by Amphora Media, the journalism platform of the Daphne Caruana Galizia Foundation.

The two brothers, each sentenced in 2022 to 40 years in prison, spent the summer of 2017 planning the journalist’s assassination, aided by an accomplice.

According to this accomplice, who was sentenced in 2021 to 15 years’ imprisonment, the trio initially intended to shoot the journalist at her home with sniper rifles, before ultimately opting for a car bomb.

The 53-year-old Caruana Galizia - married and the mother of three sons - was killed on Oct 16, 2017, near her home.